The Diamond standard

Scott Diamond is the only certain
piece of the 2013 rotation right now.

Last week's Denard Span trade -- established center fielder for Class A pitcher -- was the trade of an organization looking to 2015 more than 2013.

The Twins insist that's not the case. With the winter meetings -- three-plus days of the baseball industry gathered in Nashville -- getting started today, we may be about to find out how serious the Twins are about trying to rise up in the coming season.

Terry Ryan and Co. appear to have some $30 million in payroll available. They also have four openings in the starting rotation and a reputed focus on the free agent crop rather than trades to fill those gaps.

My yardstick for whatever veteran starting pitchers the Twins acquire is fairly simple: Scott Diamond. Diamond's career numbers to date -- 34 starts, 212 innings, 3.82 ERA -- is roughly one full season in the rotation in terms of workload and a decent third starter in terms of results.

The Twins have plenty of options to slot in behind that. They have, on their 40-man roster, five pitchers who figure to start if they make the 25-man roster -- alphabetically, Cole De Vries, Kyle Gibson, Liam Hendriks, B.J. Hermsen and Pedro Hernandez -- and a sixth, Brian Duensing, who may start but probably fits better in the bullpen. They will have in camp as non-roster invitees another wave of candidates, most of whom we're familiar with: Nick Blackburn (and his $5.5 million contract), Sam Deduno, Esmerling Vasquez and P.J. Walters.

That's at least 10 candidates, none of whom can reasonably be said right now to project to the Diamond Standard in 2013. Gibson does in further seasons, but we know he's not going to be allowed to throw 200 innings next year.

The Twins goal in Nashville this week -- if they are serious about trying to return to contention in 2013 -- has to be on finding two pitchers who can reasonably match or surpass the Diamond Standard next season: 30-plus starts, 200-plus innings, ERA under 4.00.

That won't be easy, or inexpensive. But that's the need. The Twins don't need to spend on bulk starters to fill out the rotation; they have that already. They need quality at the head of the rotation.

Eye on 2013: Anthony Swarzak

Anthony Swarzak was a second-round draft pick
|in the same year that the Twins drafted Trevor Plouffe,
Glen Perkins and Kyle Waldrop, all of whom went ahead of him.

The Twins needed somebody to make a fill-in start Tuesday in Sam Deduno's stead. I had expected Brian Duensing to get the ball, but he was used for a fairly extensive relief outing during the weekend, and Anthony Swarzak got the start.

Swarzak went five innings, giving up four runs. Which is pretty much in line with his career splits: 5.74 ERA in 27 career starts entering Tuesday's game, 4.03 ERA in 55 relief appearances.

The Twins still take Duesning seriously as a starting candidate, despite mounting evidence that he's a far more effective reliever. Even with Tuesday's spot start, I don't think they take Swarzak seriously as a starting candidate.

Nor should they. Duensing has two advantages over Swarzak. First, Duensing's left-handed. Second, he had some success in the rotation in 2009 and 2010.

I have often over the past few years invoked the memory of Matt Guerrier when discussing a certain type of bullpen candidate -- men with a starter's repertoire whose talent level was just a tad short of being a major league starter. Guerrier spent two seasons, 2005 and 2006, filling the long-man role in a well-stacked Minnesota bullpen, and stepped into higher leverage roles in 2007 as Jesse Crain got hurt and Juan Rincon lost his effectiveness.

One difference between Guerrier and Swarzak is that Swarzak has been used much more as a swingman -- 11 starts last season, five this year. My sense of it is that Swarzak would be well served if he were locked into the long relief job for a year or so. But that might well require a more stable starting rotation.

Eye on 2013: Trevor Plouffe

Chris Parmelee greets Trevor Plouffe (24) at home plate
after Plouffe's home run Monday.

Trevor Plouffe hit his 24th home run of the season Monday night in Toronto. He also doubled in a run and drew a walk, giving him three straight games with two hits.

He also had his adventures defensively at third base. In the sixth inning, with the bases loaded and one out, he threw home on a ground ball and got one out. The next batter then doubled between Plouffe and the line — Plouffe's range to his right has been an issue — for two runs.

Ron Gardenhire's take on the inning, via Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com:

I think a failed double play hurt us. We went home with it, but in my opinion we had to turn two there, and it ended up costing us to let them get in striking range.

Highs and lows. That's been Plouffe's season, and it's not certain that 26-year-old former first-round draft pick is going to be a regular for the Twins next year.

He had a monster run at the plate in mid-season. From May 13 (Mother's Day) through July 20 — 54 games, one third of the season — he hit .293/.345/.610 with 18 homers and 11 doubles.

Then he hurt his thumb, a "day-to-day" injury that ultimately kept him out of the lineup for three weeks and perhaps should have kept him out longer. Once he returned Aug. 13, he didn't hit: .188/.241/.312 through Sunday. As unimpressive as that slash line is, it's better than the .130/.277/.204 he compiled leading up to Mother's Day.

That roller coaster makes him a prime candidate for the misevaluation I call "Dick Bremer Disease," the tendency we tend to have of judging a player's talents by what he does at his best. Plouffe's not a .610 slugger. For the season, he has an on-base percentage under .300 and a slugging percentage under .450, and I think that's closer to his reality.

Defensively, Plouffe has not been good at third base. Baseball Info Solutions' plus-minus and runs saved metrics — explained here — put him near the bottom of defensive third basemen. Of the 20 men with at least 700 innings at the hot corner, Plouffe is tied with Miguel Cabrera for 17th in plus-minus and is 18th in runs saved.

Combine the lousy defense with the underwhelming offensive totals for the season, and Plouffe appears ripe for replacement. With whom is another matter; the Twins lack an obvious in-house alternative.

Eye on 2013: Matt Capps

Matt Capps' 2012:
30 games, 14 saves
and about half a
season on the
disabled list.

Matt Capps, semi-official whipping boy of the Twins Internet, opened the season as closer and was OK in that role — not great, but acceptable — into June.

He picked up saves on June 2, 3, 4 and 6 and a win on June 8— five games in seven days, throwing a total of just eight pitches in two of those outings — and at that point things appear to have started to splutter physically. He was given a week between appearances between June 15 and 23, then went on the disabled list for almost three weeks. He came back, made two appearances in three days, went back on the DL, and didn't return until last week.

It's the second year in a row that Capps has experienced arm issues that emerged soon after a period of daily work. That doesn't work well with modern bullpen usage, which tends to lean heavily on the idea that relievers can be used often in short bursts.

Glen Perkins is now in command of the ninth inning job, and nobody seriously believes that the Twins will pick up Capps' $6 million option for 2013. Capps is back, in reality, to audition for  the other 29 teams. He wants to show that his arm is sound going into the offseason and his expected free agency.

But he hasn't gotten much showing in. When he was reactivated, Ron Gardenhire made it known that

• Capps wouldn't be used on consecutive days and
• Capps had been told that he wasn't coming back to make one appearance and go home.

Capps returned for two series against teams in the playoff hunt — the Yankees and Tigers — and while the Twins didn't win either series, they were generally playing close games. He has made one appearance, mopping up a loss to the Yankees on Sept. 26, and as far as I know hasn't even warmed up since.

The Twins have a 10-man bullpen right now — well, call it nine, because one of them (probably Brian Duensing) will be called upon to start Tuesday in Sam Deduno's stead — and everybody else is a possible contributor to the 2013 Twins. Gardenhire took the games against the Yankees and Tigers seriously, not as a time to experiment, and right now Perkins, Jared Burton and Casey Fein are the top dogs in the bullpen.

So Capps' idleness last week is explicable. There are three games left, on the road against the non-contending Toronto Blue Jays, and if Capps goes unused in those games, I will be curious about why he was reactivated last week. One isolated appearance wouldn't seem to be much assurance to potential employers.

Eye on 2013: Sam Deduno

SaM Deduno has stuck out 57 and walked 57 in 79
innings for the Twins this season.

It was pretty obvious Wednesday afternoon that (a) Sam Deduno couldn't see the ball coming when it was thrown back to him and that (b) that meant he had to come out of the game for his own protection.

It's also easy to understand why he was so reluctant to leave the mound. This season has been the chance Deduno's spent years waiting, working and hoping for, and it's ending on a down note. He'd had two poor starts in a row entering Wednesday's game, and he didn't last long enough against the Yankees to make any judgments. While the Twins have six games left, there's no guarantee he'll be allowed to start in the final series against Toronto.

One more start may not matter in terms of evaluating him. Deduno's 29; he's been in the Minnesota rotation since July 7. He is what he is, and is what he's always been: A guy with outstanding stuff and very little command of it. He's had 15 starts for the Twins; eight have been quality starts, and he didn't make it through five innings in five of of the other seven.

What that says to me is "back of the rotation." The Twins have plenty of guys who would be passable as fifth starters. They need some guys who are better than that. Right now, they have Scott Diamond and the Void.

John Sickels posted this piece Wednesday on Deduno's long journey to the majors and his outlook; Sickels' take on him is pretty close to mine. There MIGHT be a usable starter there, but the Twins can't afford to stake their rotation on it.

Eye on 2013: Scott Diamond

Scott Diamond is visited on the mound Sunday by
pitching coach Rick Anderson and catcher Ryan Doumit.
(The Detroit AP identified the coach as Joe Vavra, but we
all know better than that.)

Scott Diamond is the one sure bet to be in the Twins 2013 starting rotation, the leader in the clubhouse for the Opening Day start.

But Sunday's sterling performance against Detroit was his first quality start in more than a month. His recent struggles have given credence to the notion that he's more cubic zirconia than diamond. (Stop groaning.)

Diamond has two very real strengths: He avoid walks (his 1.68 walks per nine innings is the best among American League qualifiers) and he gets ground balls (ninth in the majors in groundball/flyball ratio among 92 qualifiers, according to Baseball Reference; all stats through Sunday's games).

He also has a major red flag: his strikeout rate is 89th among those same 92 qualifiers.

One interesting aspect to Diamond's 2012 season has been his ability to get double plays. He has had, according to Baseball Reference, 108 "opportunities" — a runner on first with less than two outs — and has induced 24 GIDP. That's 22 percent — double the major league average of 11 percent, and easily the highest among the 92 qualifiers.

I don't know that Diamond, or any pitcher, can "turn up" his ground ball rate when he's in a double-play situation. I think it's much like hitting in RBI situations — if you hit for a good average to start with, you'll hit for a good average with runners on second and/or third. Diamond is a ground ball pitcher, and he gets ground balls whether or not there's a man on first. 

One neutral stat on Diamond of note: His BABIP, or Batting Average on Balls In Play, is neither high nor low. It's right around major league average, which suggests that he's been neither lucky nor unlucky.

In other words, what we've seen is a pretty good indication of what we'll get in future seasons.

That's not an ace. but it is a quality starter.

Eye on 2013: Tyler Robertson

Tyler Robertson
has allowed just 20
hits in 24 major league
innings, but four of
them have been
home runs.

From all appearances, the Twins 2013 bullpen will feature Glen Perkins in the closer's role, which means that he won't be called upon to get crucial outs in the seventh or eighth innings.

Of the pitchers on hand, there are two options for that job: Brian Duensing, who may be used instead in the rotation, and Tyler Robertson.

Assume that Duesning is rotation bound. Is Robertson really the lefty one wants to entrust with key at-bats late in games?

Robertson has worked 24 innings for the Twins since his call-up -- 24 innings spread out over 37 games, statistical evidence that he's used as a LOOGY (Left-handed One Out GuY). He has an ERA of 5.63, which is definitely unimpressive, and 25 strikeouts, which is impressive. He's also allowed four homers, which is one every six innings, and that's a high rate.

Twenty-four innings is not much of a sample size, but it's what we have to work with. And it can be argued that the job of a short reliever is to dominate small sample sizes.

Robertson has faced 67 lefties so far and just 38 righties -- again, he's a LOOGY, and Ron Gardenhire has been adept at getting him the matchups he should be effective in. 

Left-handers are hitting .186/.258/.305, which is ... awesome. He's struck out 21 of those 67 left-handed hitters, and that's also very good. He's allowed two homers to lefties, but at least they were allowed to legit power hitters (Prince Fielder and Adam Dunn). 

Right-handers are hitting .300/447/.500. Nine hits, two of them homers, and eight walks (although three of the walks were intentional). 

My take at this point: To be a truly useful late-inning reliever, Robertson needs to be better at keeping the ball in the park, and he needs to be able to do something against right-handed hitters. 

I think he'd be a better fit as the no. 2 non-closing lefty than as the top option.  But doing that means either committing to Duesning in the bullpen, which the Twins seem unwilling to do at this point, or bringing in another lefty arm -- and that might complicate things if Duensing winds up back in the pen in spring training. 

Eye on 2013: Brian Duensing

Brian Duensing
wants to be a starter,
but has been more
effective as a reliever.

It would behoove the Twins to decide early this offseason: Is Brian Duensing a starter or a reliever?

The lefty has been markedly better this season working out of the bullpen than in the rotation. His ERA as a reliever (51.2 innings) is 2.61; as a starter (52 innings), 6.92.

Such drastic difference, it would seem, makes this an easy call. But the Twins' shortage of usable starters is so glaring, and Duensing's record as a rotation fill-in in 2009 and 2010 so bright, that Ron Gardenhire and Co. continue to look in his direction.

Part of the fascination with the idea is that Duesning's stuff is certainly no worse than that of Scott Diamond's, and probably superior. If Diamond can be an effective starter, why can't Duensing?

Well ... because at this point, Duensing can't get right-handed hitters out. Righties are hitting .312/.352/.464 this year off Duensing, lefties just .237/.280/.362. It's easier to match him up against left-handed hitters as a relief pitcher.

This is the same issue that ran Duensing aground as a starter in 2011, although the differences were even deeper that year. The problem has not been solved. And I'm skeptical that it can be.

If the Twins keep Duensing in the bullpen, the relief corps becomes considerably deeper immediately. With Glen Perkins as the closer, Duesning gives them a superior lefty set-up man. If Duensing's in the rotation, Tyler Robertson is a step down as a lefty specialist.

But a decent starting pitcher is more valuable than a good relief pitcher. And the Twins projected rotation right now has Diamond -- who, much as I like him, isn't likely to contend for a Cy Young -- and a bunch of vacancies.

I think this: When the Twins hold their organizational meetings after the season, and Gardenhire and ptiching coach Rick Anderson talk up Duensing as a starter, Terry Ryan ought to ask: How is he going to get righties out?

If they don't have a specific, workable answer, Duesning should go in the bullpen plan. And if they do have a specific, workable answer, the next question is: Why didn't you/he do that this year?

Eye on 2013: Drew Butera vs. Chris Herrmann

Chris Herrmann hit
.276/.350/.392 in
New Britain.

With both Joe Mauer and Ryan Doumit sidelined by injuries that may well prove persistent for what remains of the season, the Twins decided to add a fourth catcher.

The arrival Friday of Chris Herrmann is seen in some corners of Twinsdom as the next step in supplanting Drew Butera as the No. 3 catcher. I'm not so sure.

Herrmann is a left-handed hitter who has displayed strong on-base skills but limited power in the minors. He was an outfielder in college, so he's spent a couple of years being converted to catcher, but has gotten considerable playing time in the outfield as well as behind the dish.

This makes Herrmann something of a mirror image of Butera — a bit rough defensively, a left-handed hitter who can reach base. Sort of like Jose Morales, who lost out to Butera for the backup job a few years ago, except with position flexibility. Or like Doumit, only with less power (and a bit more speed).

Which is why I doubt that Herrmann is likely to supplant Butera next season. I think it more likely that Herrmann, who spent this season at Double A, will play in Rochester next year. The Twins demonstrated a couple years ago that they preferred Butera's defensive chops to Morales's batting average; there's not a lot of sense in having two bat-first backup catchers. Doumit and Herrmann are rather redundant; Doumit and Butera are complementary.

Rene Rivera hit
.226/.307.385 in
Rochester.

Meanwhile, Rene Rivera — who spent a good part of 2011 on the active roster and all of 2012 in Triple A Rochester hoping for a call — is apparently steamed at being passed over for Herrmann.  Rivera on Twitter Friday:

I guess I should not expect promises to be kept. Best of luck to everyone #Disappointed #Lies

Well ... Redundancy again. Rivera is the same kind of player as Butera:  Catch-and-throw guy, not a good hitter, right-handed all the way. Were it, say, Mauer and Butera who were hurt, calling up Rivera to back up Doumit would provide a mix of skills. Herrmann gives the Twins a mix.

That kind of logic, obviously, isn't going to salve Rivera's wounded feelings. I would anticipate that he won't be re-signing with the Twins this winter, that he'll find another team to serve as organizational depth.

Eye on 2013: Cole De Vries

Minnesota native Cole De Vries
was signed as an undrafted free
agent out of the University of
Minnesota.

Cole De Vries began the 2012 season about as much on the outside as any pitcher in the Twins system. The Twins had 32 pitchers in major league camp; De Vries was not one of them.

De Vries' 2012 season ended Thursday when it was determined that he had a cracked rib from the line drive he caught with his chest Saturday. He exits 2012 as the third-best starter the Twins had this season -- 5-5, 4.11 in  87.2 innings, 16 starts -- essentially half a season. (He also had 70 innings at Triple A Rochester.) He ended strong -- his ERA in his final four starts was 1.54, and that included an outing against Texas.

He can, and should, feel good about his 2012 season.

The question today: Should the Twins feel good about having him in their 2013 rotation?

A 4.11 ERA isn't bad, but it's a bit deceptive in De Vries' case; he also allowed eight unearned runs, one of the higher numbers on the staff (Brian Duensing has allowed nine so far, and Liam Hendriks has also allowed eight.) Add in those unearned runs, and he allowed 4.93 runs per nine innings.

Looking at the key leading indicator stats: He had a very good walk rate (1.8 BB/9) and walk/strikeout ratio (3.22 strikeouts for each walk allowed). The strikeout rate itself (6 K/9) rates pretty highly for the team, but is below average for the league.

Those figures, in total, suggest his effectiveness was genuine.

On the other hand ... De Vries allowed 16 homers, 1.6 per nine innings, which is a high rate. His BABIP -- Batting Average on Balls In Play -- was .262, and that is not sustainable for a non-knuckleballer. Those stats suggest that he was getting results better than he "should" have gotten.

I've seen a comparison of De Vries to Paul Byrd, a late-bloomer who won 109 games in a 14-year career. Byrd, I think, represents De Vries' ceiling -- and the Twins should be delighted if De Vries can match the Byrd of 2002-2008.

But there are a lot of guys who match that kind of profile, and few get as much out of limited stuff as Byrd did. The Twins ought not go into the offseason with De Vries penciled into a rotation spot. He should be in a group competing next spring for the fourth or fifth slots. He has, in my view, been good enough to justify retaining on the 40-man roster this winter.